Aug 19 2012

Try Try Again

I saved this cedar from the chop back in 2008. It was growing as a tall tree in the middle of a lawn. The owner wanted it removed as it was ruining the lines created by his lawnmower! There was 4 of them but this was the only survivor from collection. They had strimmer damage and very poor roots.

I wasn’t sure if it would even make a tree and to be honest the jury is still out on that point!! It is very straight and resembles a fence post. I don’t have the photos from the first shaping back in 2009. It was just branch selection and some primary branch wiring done to drop the branches.

A short time later I wanted to practice my carving and decided this would make a good practice piece. I wasn’t too worried about it and I thought that carving might add interest to the trunk and take away from the straightness.

You can see that I need the practice!! I then wired the tree to replace the branches at the right angles. This all took place over a 4 month period.

I wasn’t overly happy with the result. I considered lowering the height of the tree and perhaps creating a jinned apex like the virtual below. However, I wanted two tall trees that would eventually sit either side of a gate into the bonsai section of my garden. I have another one of a similar size and style and decided to keep it the full height. This meant keeping the cheat of an apex.

This is another virtual done back in2010

Yesterday I brought it into the garage and started to tidy up the weeds in the pot and and remove old needles. Before I knew it the wire was out again! Lots of growth in the last year with enough extension that I could hopefully improve the image. Branches have sprung up and needed to be brought back down again.

Me for scale.

After four hours this was the best I could come up with. I had to take it slow and steady with my dodgy shoulder but I got there in the end. I was able to use foliage to hide the bad apex.

Still a lot I’m not happy with but perhaps some day it’ll be worth all the effort. I do have a soft spot for that lovely blue foliage 🙂

Aug 18 2012

Happy Bonsai Day

My surprise and delight when I checked in for a look at a new post on Nekotoban ‘Bonsai Days’ blog to find this birthday display just for me 🙂

Thank you so much Yumiko 😀

Aug 17 2012

Cotoneaster Tidy Up

Should have taken a before photo of this one to show just ow vigorous it’s been this year. I air layered the apex off it earlier in the year and am now filling out the new apex. This was it after the tidy up.

Aug 14 2012

Japanese Black Pine Wiring

On Friday afternoon before the rest descended on my garage, I decided to test out my should with a little wiring. I opted for this shohin JBP. This is it before wiring.

Option 1

Option 2

I opted for option 1 to hide the chop wound to the back. This is the tree after wiring.

Aug 12 2012

Garage Get Together

Friday night was one of my gather up’s of friends to play with trees. We had six on the night, a few no shows due to the sunny day it turned out to be. Who could blame them. The rest of us got on with it.

Stepehn brought this Jasmine. Still pretty much raw material that had struggled last year after a repot. This year was he first it had flowered after collection from a garden.

You can notice in the photo of it’s trunk below that there was some white fungus starting on the bark. This was a dead patch which was removed to create a shari. More on this in a later post, or maybe even on Stephen’s own blog, but I doubt it 😉

Stephen caught in one of those curious moments lol

Brian, new to bonsai, came along. He had a bad experience with a Chinese Elm and I was keen to get him playing with more suitable trees. I gave him this little yew to get him started.

Sharon was there along with a lovely little Black Pine that required some needle removal.

Phil got this Elm group out for a trim.

A great night, especially the last session were the die-hards did a bit of tree critiquing. Finish time 1am and I didn’t even have a single beer!

Aug 11 2012

Shine!

In one of those brief moments of sunshine a few of my own flowers came out in style.

Bug playing peek-a-boo

Aug 10 2012

Please let me Back in the House

Aug 9 2012

Sunshine!!

Today was our British Summer 🙂 It’s now just 24 hours long!!

Michael invited me over to his place for a look around his trees and to give a little advice. This ended up being 5 hours of me working on his trees while he sat drinking Rum & Coke! [Well, just coke]

I love Michael’s garden he’s some fantastic plants hidden in his borders and I took a few snaps to show you, just don’t ask me what they are!

Michael’s bonsai are sited in three different areas in the garden and he’s plans to set up new benches. This is the main area that was recently redone and a few trees.

I was kept so busy by Michael that I didn’t get any pics of what we were up to, he did however lift my camera and take a few of me slaving away!

Thanks for a very enjoyable day Michael and especially to Alma who made a tasty lunch.

Aug 8 2012

200,000 Thank You!!

Today this blog hit 200,000 views!!

A big thank you to all who have become regular visitors to the site, I have made lots of friends around the world and I thank you all for your support.

I started the blog on the 10th February 2011 with very little expectation as to where I was going with it other than keeping a record of my own trees. Things have got somewhat out of hand 🙂

I thought I would share some of the stats with you .

I have had visitors from 146 countries. These are the top ones from this February from my stats list.